


if you're lonely lonely lonely wake me

by Cirkne



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 00:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20750996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirkne/pseuds/Cirkne
Summary: He makes it all the way to Washington before Bill calls again.





	if you're lonely lonely lonely wake me

He makes it all the way to Washington before Bill calls again. It’s two in the morning and Mike’s just dragged one of his bags to a shitty motel room. Blue wallpaper, sheets that were once white. There’s a moment before Bill says anything that mirrors the call Mike made just a few weeks ago. He feels, for the first time, what it’s like being on the other end. The pit in his stomach, the anticipation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows what comes next.

“Come-” Bill starts and cuts himself off. Mike’s suitcase, where it’s laying on the floor, is yet to be opened. “What’s in Florida?”

“Don’t know,” Mike answers truthfully. He decided on it when they were kids. After, when he was finally free to leave, he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. “It’s not Derry.”

“Okay, so you could be-” it’s strange hearing him like this. So unsure of what he’s trying to say. Back then, with the stutter, he could never allow himself to speak without first carefully calculating his words. It’s a testament to things finally being okay, Mike guesses. “There are lots of places that aren’t Derry.”

“Like San Francisco?” Mike smiles. He knows. He’s known how to read Bill since before Bill became a writer. Some traitor part in Mike wonders what took him so long to ask.

“I have a spare bedroom,” Bill offers. Mike tries to imagine him on the phone in his new house but all he can picture is a thirteen year old Bill in his old room. He knows this, knows the fear of asking someone to come back. The hidden _please_ in his voice. “I have a few, actually, you can pick.”

“Okay,” he’s still smiling. There’s nothing in Florida. He left expecting he wouldn’t make it there. The drive to Bill’s, from here, shouldn’t take more than four days. What’s that after years of waiting?

“Okay,” Bill echoes. “Look forward to seeing you, Mikey,” he sounds so formal, so practiced, so sure of himself again. He knew the answer the same way Mike knew the question before he even picked up. There’s only one place their lives can lead to. 

*

Blue eyes. It’s all he dreams about. He’s never found anyone like him. His voice, his smile. How stubborn he is, how kind. It’s all he ever dreams about.

*

They carry his things into the spare bedroom closest to Bill’s. They don’t discuss it, there’s nothing to discuss. The offer to pick had been a joke for people whose lives have not been built around each other.

“Not too many books,” Bill says, it’s meant as an observation, light conversation but it comes out smug since the ones he can see are all written by him, like artifacts Mike’s collected over the years, the links to his sanity. He’s afraid to admit that there had been joy there, too, not just dread, having them return. To him, to him, not just to that awful town. He takes the box from Bill, rolls his eyes.

“You don’t buy too many books when you work in a library, Bill,” he explains, puts the box down next to an empty shelf. All the other books he’s managed to acquire over the years, he left back in Derry. His car could only fit so much.

“You bought mine,” Bill says, he’s smiling when Mike turns to look at him. He knows exactly what this means. His eyes, so blue, go soft when they meet Mike’s. Mike can barely stand looking at him. “I missed you too, you know. I couldn’t remember, but I did.” Of course, Mike thinks, he’s read the books, he’s found himself in every single one of them.

He fights the urge to reach out and touch Bill, to prove to himself that this is real, that this is it, they made it. 

“Let’s finish with the boxes before we start getting emotional,” he offers, turns to walk out of the room and back to his car. 

Outside, the sun is still high up in the sky, still warm on his skin, still bright enough to make his eyes water when he tries to lift his head. It brings something back, slowly. Drags a memory of them at the quarry out of where it was resting with all the memories that never had any real significance. It was just another day, among all the other days, he couldn’t tell you, now, how old they were then. It must have been when they were sixteen, the hottest summer in Derry history, but he doesn’t know, doesn’t know. Behind him, Bill halts to a stop.

“Huh,” he says. They are remembering the same thing, Mike bets. The same laughter, the same warmth. The only difference being, of course, is that it feels new to Bill, like it wasn’t there three seconds ago. “Mike, do you remember-” he starts and stops. Mike opens the back door of his car. “I was going to say that one time we were at the quarry but I think- we were there a lot, weren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Mike motions for him to take one of the bags and Bill starts walking again. “But I remember,” he says as he’s handing over the bag and Bill smiles at him again. 

“Of course you do,” he goes. Mike doesn’t watch him walk back to the house.

*

All those years ago, he used to ride his bicycle behind Bill, convinced he would follow him to the end of the world. He falls asleep wondering why he stayed when Bill asked him to come with.

*

On the living room table, Mike finds a bunch of dog-eared furniture catalogs.

“You can look all this stuff up online these days, old man,” he tells Bill when he brings him coffee into his office. Bill taps a coaster resting on the right of his laptop, doesn’t look up from the screen.

“But where’s the fun in that?” he asks, his fingers back on the keyboard. He looks different like this. Mike’s seen him determined before but never this serene with it. The slight furrow in his brow, his lips pressed thinly together, his eyes focused only on his own words. Mike wants to bend down to where Bill’s sitting and kiss him until Bill starts paying attention to him. He can’t, of course. He wouldn’t.

“Shouldn’t you be the one picking that stuff out, anyway?” he asks to distract himself from the beating of his traitor heart. “It’s your house.”

“Our house,” Bill corrects so casually that it sounds like he’s done it a thousand times before. Mike knew, really, that this was permanent for him, that there was nowhere else he wanted to or could go. But this feels big, still, having Bill say it like this before he even remembers why Mike thinks of him as home in the first place. “Now shoo before I get distracted,” he says and reaches for the coffee.

Mike looks through the catalogs, makes a list of things the house needs and staples it to the fridge. Later, they sit at the kitchen table and go over everything together. Mike wonders, briefly, if Bill and Audra had done the same thing years prior. Doesn’t ask. Argues Bill on which type of wood would look best in the dining room. 

*

Back then, of course, it had felt like belonging somewhere. Like he was already home. He realizes now that it hadn’t been Derry, that this feeling has been living in his chest for twenty seven years exactly, that it’s come back, that it no longer has any reason to leave.

*

Bill’s turned his body all the way to Mike on the couch. He’s halfway through his second beer, he’s watching him.

“I want you to tell me,” he says and sounds vulnerable in a way that doesn’t suit him. “I want to know,” soft and raw and like they’re teenagers again. He’s sitting so close. He’s let his hair grow so long.

“You want to _remember_ and you won’t just because I tell you,” Mike knew this would come, he knew his heart would start racing with the weight of his memories. Bill narrows his eyes like he knows it’s taking Mike all he has not to tell him. 

“But if I never go back there,” Bill trails off, or maybe he asks a question that doesn’t sound like one at all, it doesn’t really matter, does it, Mike knows what it is he’s trying to say.

“It’s not just Derry anymore. It’s the losers, too, this time,” he reaches out to touch Bill and grabs for his beer once he realizes what he’s doing, takes a swig. Bill hums.

“And I have you again,” he says, matter-of-factly. He’s looking right at Mike. It feels like he knows exactly what he’s doing, but he wouldn’t be this cruel if he did. Mike nods.

*

Their last spring together in Derry, before they’ve talked about it but after they’ve had to admit it to themselves, feels like a ray of light in his chest. He wakes up, often, pressed to Bill. His temple against Bill’s shoulder, their feet tangled together, Bill’s arm against his back. Mike’s always been taller but Bill’s-

Bill’s always been the one to drag him down, to pull him in. He’s always been something special, something safe. Over two decades later, Mike still wakes up feeling like something is missing.

*

They check out job listings at the kitchen table, Mike’s laptop in front of them, Bill warm next to him. He keeps vetoing the jobs with long commutes, keeps reminding Mike that he has more than enough money to support them both.

“Would you stop bragging, mr. best selling author?” Mike laughs the fourth time he says it and Bill laughs, too, when he realizes that it does sound a lot like bragging.

“Sorry,” he waves his hand. “I just like you being here all the time.”

“You work half the time I’m here,” Mike reminds him, opens another offer in a new tab. 

The day before this, Bill got his divorce papers in the mail and they sat on the desk in his office for two hours while the two of them cooked and ate breakfast. Bill had called Audra after and Mike listened to them have a polite yet somewhat stilted conversation about the legal side of things and then about the logistics of promoting Bill’s movie without talking too much about their personal lives. 

“And it’s nice knowing that you’re somewhere in the house when I do,” Bill brings him back to reality, pokes Mike’s cheek in a childish sort of gesture but when Mike turns to look at him, there’s no mirth in his eyes. Mike knows this look. He’s carried the terror of Pennywise his entire life but there’s something about forgetting where you’re from that terrifies him just the same. 

“I’m not leaving,” he assures as they’re looking at each other. He can see Bill scan his face for dishonesty, or maybe hesitation. It’s all the same. 

“If you promise,” Bill breathes out and turns back to Mike’s laptop screen. The scars are gone but Mike runs his fingers along his palm just the same.

*

Stanley’s head in his lap, Richie asleep next to him, he watches Bill walk around the room making sure everyone’s warm and comfortable. He looks exhausted but he smiles, genuinely, when he sees Mike looking at him. His priorities have always lied in taking care of them. It’s not like the feeling surprises him but it does grow bigger, consuming his entire body. He’s in love with Bill Denbrough, he always has been, he always will be.

*

Most nights, they end up half on top of each other on the couch, watching reruns of old tv shows or movies they’ve either both seen or have no real interest in seeing. Bill tells him about his books. Not just the things he wrote, Mike knows those parts, he tells him about everything he wanted to put in between the lines, all the parts he left out, the things the fans have figured out and given him, just the same. He tells him about his life, about dropping out of college, about the dates he used to take Audra on. He talks like he has an audience, like the room is full of people and they are all listening, he winks at Mike like they’re in on a secret whenever he realizes something he did or wrote or thought about is because of Derry, because of them. 

They netflix the two comedy specials Richie has on there and insult most of the jokes. They’re not his so they don’t feel guilty about it. They talk about the parts Bill remembers already and then he asks, a lot, about the parts he doesn’t, about the parts he wasn’t there for. He’s disappointed when he realizes that most of Mike’s life revolved around carrying their memories and never doing much to make ones that didn’t involve the losers. They talk about the movies and shows they’ve seen, books and articles they’ve read, about the trips Bill would take and hated and the ones Mike would plan and never do. 

Sometimes they fall asleep like that and Mike wakes with a thundering heart, his arms around Bill.

“We’re too old to sleep on the couch,” Bill complains when his back is sore. He looks tired, disheveled, he’s wearing yesterday’s clothes, he’s stretching his arms out, eyes still barely open. Mike wants to ask him, softly, to lay back down, to let him go back to sleep listening to Bill’s heartbeat. 

“I’ll make coffee,” he says instead and climbs out, heads for the kitchen. He wonders if what he did back in Washington was agree to a lifetime of yearning.

“We should go somewhere,” Bill yells after him, continuing a conversation they were too tired for yesterday.

“Like where?” Mike asks as he’s taking the coffee out of the cupboard. They can’t, with him job hunting and all, but he likes humouring Bill and the idea of them, together, away from everything else.

“We could visit the losers,” he says walking into the kitchen to join Mike. They call every week but Mike gets the sentiment of missing them, hums and gets their mugs out. “We could plan a cross-country roadtrip and pick them all up along the way.”

“You were _just_ complaining about sleeping on the couch, Bill. How’s your back gonna take to sleeping in the car?” Bill makes a face like his pride’s been wounded and Mike tries not to grin too blatantly at him.

“I’m stronger than you think,” he counters, sounds as stubborn as ever, walks to the fridge to get milk for Mike’s coffee. Mike thinks about Audra again. Her, standing in his place by the counter, reaching out take the milk from Bill, saying:

“Sure, William,” to tease him, to make him smile in surprise, to watch amusement dance on his tired face. 

“Shut up, Mikey,” Bill laughs. Mike turns back to their mugs so he doesn’t do something stupid like tell him he’s still in love with him. 

*

He’s terrified of what it all means. They’ve been promising each other forever and drifting away just the same. They say their goodbyes like they know this is it. They hold each other and struggle with the idea of letting go. It’s all inevitable. After, it takes about a month for them to stop answering his calls. It’d be selfish of him to remind them, so. He waits. It’s all he can do.

*

Mike’s driving them to buy groceries. Partly, because he doesn’t want to have to drink his coffee black the next morning, mostly because Bill’s been cooped up in his office the entire day rewriting the same chapter of his new book and needs a change of scenery if he doesn’t want to lose his mind.

“It feels like I’m missing something,” he says as he’s playing with the radio, not quite settling on anything. His window is open slightly, though it’s not at all helping with how hot it is. The AC in Mike’s car is broken so they probably should have taken Bill’s but he likes this old thing. Likes how Bill looks in the passenger seat, like he was always meant to be there.

“You might be,” Mike tells him honestly. He wonders, quite often these days, if Bill’s ever going to remember all of it. If anything that happened after they defeated Pennywise that first time ever really mattered. Over the horizon, the sun has started to set. He takes a left, keeps his eyes focused on the road though he wants, desperately, to look at Bill.

“I remember this-” he pauses, shifts. “We’re sitting in the clubhouse,” he starts explaining. “you’re late and Stan’s holding this red book and Beverly’s smoking and she leans over to ask what I’m drawing and I can’t tell her. And I remember this vividly but I can’t figure out what it was or why it has any significance so I don’t know why I’m writing it in in the first place, I just know I have to.”

Mike hums, blinks. He wishes he had all the answers, or at least this one. Bill switches the same two radio stations back and forth a few times, sighs and turns the radio off all together. After a moment:

“I wanted to ask you to come home when I called that night,” he admits, quietly. “but I didn’t know if you would get it.”

“I would have,” Mike says, turns to Bill as soon as they stop at a red light. “I do.”

“Why?” Bill, though, isn’t looking at him, eyes focused on something far off in the distance. 

“Because I know you,” this is more honesty than he allows himself most days, turns back to the road. The light is still red, still holding them in place.

“Why am I what you consider home?” he asks. And maybe, finally, turns to look at Mike but they’re green to go so Mike goes. “I keep feeling like you’re not telling me something.”

“I’m not,” more honesty. “You need to figure it out by yourself.”

“Says who?” 

Mike doesn’t know how to answer it so he stays quiet. Eventually, Bill turns the radio on again and leaves it as is. The song playing sounds unfamiliar, strange. They’re almost at the store. It hits him, suddenly, that he’s been waiting for their dynamic to change so his soul could settle. It might not happen. If Bill doesn’t remember, he’ll be stuck waiting.

*

Nothing ever happens. He’s in love and maybe, if he allows himself hope, he can see all the ways Bill feels the same. He asks Mike to go with when he leaves Derry, he says that the world out there will mean nothing without him. Because he is eighteen and still terrified of the unfamiliar things that lie outside the walls of Maine, Mike says no and watches Bill’s car drive away. Nothing could have ever happened.

*

The bed is too big. Or, his body is too small. For how much Bill spent on the house, the heating in it sucks. He wakes up shivering most mornings. He wakes up at the very edge of the bed. It’s five in the morning. It’s still mostly dark outside. He turns over and sighs. 

It’s hard to remember, sometimes, why he chose not to tell Bill. His hands reaching out to touch something that isn’t there. He’s afraid that if Bill finds out rather than remembers, he’ll convince himself that he did, or does, feel the same way. Mike knows the affection the losers feel for each other. It’s smothering, it’s overcoming. It’s like he was made to love them exclusively and everything else he could ever feel blurs into the background. 

It takes him less time to decide on it than he’ll admit once he’s not sleep deprived, but he goes into Bill’s room, rests his palm on Bill’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he says, softly. “Can I sleep here?” Bill hums instead of answering because he’s still mostly asleep but he moves to make room for Mike next to him. He’s warm, of course, he pulls Mike closer to himself and rests his arm on his waist. He whispers:

“Finally,” right before Mike drifts off to sleep.

*

His hair. His eyes. His lips. The way he smiles, laughs. His voice, his shoulders, collarbones. His hands. The way he pulls Mike in, how he holds him, close, close. The sound of his heartbeat, of his breathing. The way he says, over and over again: 

“_I love you,_”

*

When Mike comes home, Bill’s skyping Ben in the kitchen. He carries his bag to his bedroom and comes back to join them. Ben’s talking about a trip he and Beverly are planning. He calls for her once he sees Mike. He calls her _sweetheart_. Mike wishes they weren’t so far away.

“Mike!” she exclaims, she looks delighted to see him, she looks ten years younger, she looks so happy, finally, it makes Mike’s heart swell.

“Hey, Bev,” he smiles. Somehow it’s different seeing her like this, not just hearing her voice over the phone. “You look good.”

“Hey,” Ben interjects. “No flirting with Beverly in front of me.”

“But behind your back?” Bill asks, grinning way too wide. He’s blurry on the screen, the angles of his body soft and hazy in the kitchen light and his eyes, still as blue as ever, still piercing, still happy and full of something that makes you aware, more than anything, that this is someone special, someone born to do great, to lead. 

Mike blinks. He’s stopped listening to the conversation.

They’re mirrored in the laptop screen. Ben and Bill, sat down, smiling, their hair falling on their foreheads, their eyes, politely, but also full of affection, focused on one another. Beverly and Mike, next to them, bent down to fit in the frame, watching not each other but, quite obviously, the men they’re with. He sees the moment Bill realizes this too, how his eyes go wide and he leans back in his chair, looks at Mike, not through the screen but turns to him fully.

“Hey,” he says like it’s the first time he’s seeing him. Mike steps back, ready to run from this but Bill wraps his fingers around Mike’s wrist to keep him in place. When Mike looks at him, he no longer looks surprised.

“Um,” Mike starts, bites at his lip nervously and before he can turn back to the screen and ask something to distract Bill from finally realizing why he’s Mike’s first choice, Bill is getting out of his chair and-

his hands have always been softer than you’d expect, and-

he’s way shorter than Mike, he is, and-

he’s grown his hair out so long, and-

he’s smiling, he’s laughing, his lips, and-

and, and, and-

he’s kissing Mike. One of his hands on Mike’s jaw and the other on the back of his neck, pulling him in, in, in.

Ben gasps, making them pull away. 

“You should have told me,” Bill whispers, looking straight at him. He’s so beautiful, his lips so pink, his skin warm where Mike’s hands have found their way on his waist. And then he turns back to the laptop and grins, stupidly, “Sorry, we’ll call you later,” he says and closes his laptop before Ben or Beverly can even say goodbye.

He goes right back to kissing Mike and Mike, okay, he feels like he’s been waiting for this his entire life. He kisses back with as much as he can, struggles to hold Bill as close as he wants him.

*

The most that happens, really, is that they move some stuff around. The bedroom that had been Mike’s goes back to being a spare. This time, when Mike wants to kiss Bill until he pays attention to him and not his book, he does and then he gets chastised, fondly, about being a distraction.

“I’ve waited twenty seven years for this,” he answers when Bill pokes him in the ribs for it as they’re laying in bed that night.

“And then refused to tell me you still felt the same until I figured it out, so, really, Mikey, this is on you,” Bill counters, grins when Mike swats at him with the book he’s attempting to read. And then, way to proud of himself, grabs Mike’s wrists and pulls him closer, forcing him to drop the book and fall half on top of Bill. Kisses him.

He thinks back to that shitty motel room, to the call. Bill had wanted to say _Come home_ and Mike had no choice but to listen.

**Author's Note:**

> title from wake me by the bleachers 
> 
> i couldn't stand looking at this any longer so it's unedited and im sorry for any mistakes
> 
> im @ tadaffodil on twitter if you want to talk IT


End file.
